vortex
Well-known member
(Disclaimer: all my sizes will be metric, I will try to convert some to imperial for the American readers but please don't count on it)
Well, I've been waiting for the day I had something to show here worthy of my own thread
That day has finally come Now, this will be a long post. Please excuse the length, but I like recounting my history as (to me at least) it's important to show how I got where I am
Feel free to skip it, should you choose to First, some background. I've been racing Karts since I was 12 years old, having my first race in 1993. I raced until I was 17, nearly 18, and then I discovered cars and girls. I left the sport in 1999, moved out of home, and concentrated on girls (oh and an IT career in there somewhere, too). I got fat and kind of lost direction in terms of motorsports, but eventually as my career was doing well, I got into RC cars. Raced a lot, mainly 1/10th onroad, went to the nationals and led the B Main until a dodgy call forced me to pit for a drive through. Was quick enough in the B to finish high in the A.. Oh well, had a great fun meeting!
Ended up losing all my weight, getting down to 82kgs. A competitive weight for Karting again. RC was only an interim while I was too fat to go karting
It was almost an epifany one day that I could race karts again, so I sold just about all my RC gear inside a month or so, and bought another kart.
DSC00994 by auvortex, on Flickr
My first kart after 7 years away from the game. Didn't have an engine on it at that point, but it wasn't far behind!.
DSC00992 by auvortex, on Flickr
A rear shot.
It was an Arrow AX8 28/30. A great Aussie made kart, this model aimed at the SL tyre classes.
Here is is with the Engine on it (KT100J) and a set of new Dunlop SL1A Boots:
DSC01048 by auvortex, on Flickr
Engine
DSC01044 by auvortex, on Flickr
That one was good enough for a while getting back into the kart, the KT100J is a low powered 2 stroke engine so it promotes smooth and precise driving - two important skills to have in all karting classes above and of course in cars.
Here's some shots from the 2008 City of Adelaide titles:
Wet practice session. KT100S motor, Dunlop Wets.
Wet practice @ City of Adelaide by auvortex, on Flickr
Same Wet practice session.
Wet practice @ City of Adelaide by auvortex, on Flickr
Leading a dry heat later in the day:
Leading the 1st heat on Saturday @ City of Adelaide Titles by auvortex, on Flickr
Leading the pack in the 3rd heat:
3rd heat on Saturday evening @ City of Adelaide Titles by auvortex, on Flickr
I have plenty of other karting photos, but yet to upload most of them.
I've also had my street car on the race track in the local Time Attack series in 2010. I know it's not a muscle car like a lot of the guys here are into, but I'm a fan of fast Japanese cars.
The car is a 1993 Efini FD3S RX7, Personal Import. It's a Japanese Market model, rather than an Australian Delivered car. It's nearly stock, a turbo back exhaust, plug'n'play PowerFC ECU, intake pods, upgraded coilovers and swaybars. I borrowed some semi-slicks for the meetings as well which certainly helped
I won Round 1, beating a Porsche GT3 by a tenth of a second
I finished 2nd in Round 2, only being beaten by another FD3S, this one a mighty SP! I was 0.5 behind the SP, which has bigger brakes (this particular car has two piece disks which help), and bit more grunt from larger SP-only twin turbos. This SP has had extensive time on the setup jigs as well, and is very well sorted. Apart from a professional alignment, I set mine up with a steel ruler and has never been corner-weighted
img4478ko by auvortex, on Flickr
img_8806_0 (1) by auvortex, on Flickr
img_9001 by auvortex, on Flickr
I love this pic. Just me, the car and the track.
mclean car 62 time attack by auvortex, on Flickr
I had a bit of sadness in Round 3. I was pushing hard in practice, the car oversteered (3rd gear, 4500rpm, full boost..) coming out of turn two after I caught and passed an Mitsu Evo and another FD3S RX7 and was pushing for one final lap. Collected a tyre wall, leaving the front right fender slightly pushed in and a steering tie rod bent. I had already been planning to build a dedicated race car, but this accident in my street car that means so much to me just confirmed to me I should be keeping it on the street (and driving it appropriately), and building a dedicated time attack weapon for the track.
That's where the new house and garage comes in!
For the past 5 years my fiancee' (well, she's only been the fiancee for 2 years) and our daughter have been living in a nice little house - but it hasn't had enough shed room for me, and i've been going nuts. My FD3S and my Kart are stored in my parents garage at their house. Their garage, because it's not my own, means I can't do the things I want to do in it. I can't (and don't want to) spend any money on their garage only to have to move my stuff later anyway.
This new house, is basically a dream come true for me because of my garage, but also for my other half who loves to cook (legitamate hobby for her, I don't ask her to do it!) as she'll get a much better kitchen than we have here as well. I said she could have a spa as well considering I got my own full garage
To work out the size for the Garage, we basically chose a plan we liked, and then moved a few walls around and added the space to the garage. An initial version of the plan had even another 30cm on the width, right up to the boundary, but because of that we would have had to pay an extra fee for building on the boundary, and the bills were already adding up. Ended up taking that extra width off to save the money, it was just too expensive for the extra space we gained.
Anyway, here's the plan as was signed off:
All sizes are metric. Garage size is appx 20ft x 26ft.
That was as close to being a house as it was for about 6 months: a few iterations through council and ended up having the slab split-leveled. That was OK in the end, because with the front of the house stepped down means that the cieling height in the Garage (and the other front rooms) is just a shade under 3 meters. Enough for a 2 post hoist
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